"The Kobayashi Maru test, it isn't about about facing death; it is about facing life." - Rear Admiral (Lower Half) Hannah Singer, Systems Alliance Naval Academy, 2181
SSV Normandy, On FTL Approach To Theseus System, Attican Beta Cluster, July 7, 2183
Author's Note: An ARC before Feros. Just so you know? I tore up the Canon book pretty good here and the soon-to-come Priority: Feros mission. Don't expect a rehash. And I'm going to highlight some of the minor crew members to give you a feel on how the Navy operates on a more day-to-day basis; something games and movies really don't cover because who wants to watch a 24 hour show where nothing really important happens save an eight hour shift and some grabass?
An ode to Elizabeth Moon, David Drake, and other Sci-Fi space battles in which, like the Navies of today, it's all about the totality.
Now sit back and enjoy yet another original mission... in space!
Don't forget to check out the disclaimer!
Able Seaman Rosamund Valerie Dravens (LT4) sat at her duty station, the LADAR Technician using her terminal to search for any inbound light signatures on-approach to the SSV Normandy. There were eight sensor duty stations that no less than eight technicians, such as herself, monitored at all times. As a LADAR Tech, it was her job to scan for any inbound/outbound 'light' signatures; any kind of reading that would identify the position, direction, and composition of an object in space. In theory, a good LADAR and a good Technician could 'see' anything within an AU, give or take light-lag, cosmic radiation interference, distortion, and a myriad of other hashes that made simply 'watching' a screen a real effort. Today, her focus was on Vavilov–Cherenkov Radiation, generally just called Cherenkov Radiation after the Russian scientist who first detected it with experiments. Cherenkov Radiation was the electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle passed through a dielectric medium at a speed greater than the phase velocity of light in that medium. In other words, she detected Faster-Than-Light signatures. Yesterday, she had Thermodynamic Signatures; heat signatures. The day before that she had Reber signatures; radio astronomical search for any incoming radio signals in the electromagnetic medium of space. It was rotated so that the Technicians could stay on top of their duties without growing compliant looking for the same thing every day.
All of a sudden, her monitor practically exploded with data for a brief moment.
"What the hell?" Rosamund whispered, seeing the LADAR going back to normal, detecting the normal backdrop of interstellar radiation that existed between systems in a cluster. The Attican Beta Cluster was known for its three dozen quasars, three remnant novas, and dozens of radiological anomalies, all retrievable thanks to the Normandy's Library Computer Access and Retrieval System, or LCARS. The ships' log noted the flare of sensory data, which she pulled up on a secondary holographic screen, looking at the massive spike of Cherenkov Radiation. It measured well within the range of a solar flare! Cravens accessed the LCARS database to compare the known anomalies and their signatures, and non of them seemed to match in the bandwidth or intensity.
This… this was different?
"Watch Officer?" Rosamund raised her hand to alert the Watch Officer of the Deck, to get their attention. Chief Petty Officer Raymond Tanaka approached from his station just aft of Ops Alley, standing in between Ops and the CIC, the veteran Sailor who was a rated LADAR Technician and Weapons Crew Chief rolled into one, approached her station just shy of the cockpit. "Chief? I just got hit with this. I… I've never seen anything quite like it." The LADAR Technician pointed out the secondary screen, matched with a third screen alongside it with known signatures that didn't correspond, gleaned from LCARS. Chief Tanaka leaned over her station to look at the signature capture of Cherenkov Radiation that would suggest someone traveling at FTL, but the intensity was way too high. The Normandy could rate at twenty-four light-years a day at full flank FTL, and push to twenty-eight in emergencies. The fastest ships in the galaxy, the Salarian Union Jotan-Class Corvette, could do thirty-two at flank, and one, the USV Tripa, held the galactic record at just over forty light-years in a day. That reading was in LCARS, the Cherenkov Radiation signature known.
What she was seeing was well beyond that.
"That isn't a ghost signature." The E-7 mused, studying the bands of radiation and the signature it caused. It was well known that ghost signatures happened all the time; old signatures from the past finally being captured after decades or centuries traveling at light-speed, picked up because a ship just happened to be at the right place at the right time to receive it so long after its originating date/time. "Too weak to be a old nova. Too broad to be a quasar or a black hole spike."
"Chief? I got a reference, but it makes no sense." Rosamund scrolled through the references, and pointed something out. "This is a match for one of the Top Ten." That was a reference to the Palaven Hierarchy Navy, being their First Fleet to their Tenth Fleet; their largest and most honored Fleets. The Dreadnoughts and fleet compositions were the best, and if one detected one of those fleets in their screen? They were going to die, quickly and brutally. The Hierarchy fielded those fleets only when they wanted some government to know they had unfortunately caught the Primarchs' full and undivided attention. Chief Tanaka looked at the signature in question. "This is a Translation Signature of the Seventh Palaven, when they exit through a Relay. The size, strength, intensity, and band." Rosamund took the signature of the Seventh and superimposed it over the unknown signature she received. "This unknown has the same hallmarks, but it's bigger on every category. It's like… the Seventh plus some friends decided to jump from the Trebia System and happen to land right here where there is no Relay."
That was impossible, of course.
Chief Petty Officer Raymond Tanaka looked at the superimposed readout, then to her.
"Captain Shepard?" He called out, and Dravens felt a little spike of fear in her heart as she looked over an sat the red-haired N7 leave her position from the CIC to walk down Ops Alley and come to her station. Dravens gulped a little.
"Talk to me, Chief." Captain Jane Shepard said to Chief Petty Officer Raymond Tanaka, who instead directed it to Able Seaman Rosamund Dravens. The LADAR Technician found herself bearing the full attention of the ships' Commanding Officer, a living legend. Her throat went parch right then and there, and she really wanted to be just about anywhere else in the galaxy other than under the scrutiny of the Lion of Elysium and Humanity's First SPECTRE. No Sailor wanted the Captains' attention on them, at least not on a personal level. She was just an E-3 Ops Deck screenwatcher, and she was now in close proximity to a woman who might just be the greatest hero ever!
"C-Captain." Rosamund stuttered a little at the sight of the larger-than-life redhead whose complete and utter attention was on her. "I got an anonymous reading spike in the Cherenkov Radiation sensors about a minute or two ago. It was very sudden, over very fast, and the intensity was well beyond anything I've seen before." The LADAR Technician pointed to the recorded reading, and then the reference she had described to Chief Tanaka. "It isn't a nova signature or an escaped neutrino burst that we sometimes get from stars or black holes. It's too regulated, too systematic. It's an artificial signature in which the only match I can come close to it is a Mass Translation of one of Palaven's Top Ten. But we're not in a Relay System."
Captain Jane Shepard looked at the readouts, and then to her.
"XO! Full alert, set condition red!" The Council Agent shouted down Ops Alley and towards where Commander Mark Vanderloo stood beside the Combat Information Center, the normal lighting of the Normandy switching from a light florescence to a shade of red to indicate threat. "How soon are we breaching Theseus' heliosphere?"
"Four minutes." The XO replied from halfway down the bridge.
"Seaman? Give me an estimate at what we're looking at. Size, time, and distance." The Captain said, standing right over her shoulder.
"Y-Yes, ma'am." Rosamund looked at the unknown signal, and began calculating degradation. Like all things in fluids, be it atmo or space, everything had a consistent and measurable decay rate over time and distance. Despite the source being an unknown, Cherenkov Radiation was a well-known effect, mapped and categorized. Even if it was at a range exceeding normal perimeters, she could measure the degradation as it passed over the ship, even as fast as it did over the one-hundred plus meter vessel. The LADAR Technician quickly did a calculation based on the variable of degradation of signal from bow to stern of the vessel, the distortion value as it passed over the ship, and the rate the intensity dropped over the same distance. With this information, she could get a good ballpark figure, as well as a direction and distance to track.
"Ma'am… I would say this signal equals to a Top Ten Translation exit plus that of the Alliance First Translation exit." Rosamund tried not to think that meant she was suggesting one of the largest Turian Fleets jumping in sync with the largest Alliance Fleet. "Distortion is low, so it was close, and soon. Less than ten minutes, and within a few AU, easily. Approximately… here." She brought up a simple map of the Attican Beta Cluster, zoomed in towards the Theseus System, and pointed to a location just outside of the heliosphere, more or less to their starboard bow. "This would give us a close approximation of the numbers I received, ma'am."
"Record it and log it, Seaman." Captain Shepard told her, still looking at the numbers. "The Geth have figured out how to catapult Relays, able to jump into a location without a fixed exit point." Dravens gasped a little at the information. Surely that couldn't be possible! "You might be the first person to actually witness the event." The redhead looked to her and gave her a professional smile and a nod. "Good catch, Dravens."
"T-thank you, ma'am." The Technician replied, feeling her heart skip a few beats. She was elated that she got recognized for her performance, but what she had recognized had her heart nearly stop at the realization.
The Geth were invading the Therum System.
And the Normandy was going to intercept.
Lieutenant Commander Charles Kenneth Pressley was a God-fearing man; had been his whole life. Fifteen years in service in the name of God and species had him see a great many things that only reaffirmed his faith and his duty. He had been on the SSV Agincourt, the first vessel to come to aid Elysium during its most harrowing hours, putting the fear of God and the wrath of Humanity into a bunch of scum-sucking assholes who thought enslaving good folks was a profitable venture. He had been a part of the Theshaca Raids in '78, where deep-range sensor buoys had been deployed to plot pirate vessels discharging at that gas giant to mark their port-of-calls and send them to their rightful eternal punishment. He had broken down and cried as an Ensign during his first ground op; the search for survivors in the town of Mindoir, cradling the broken form of a little girl. He was a God-fearing man who pushed himself to excellence, to be the man others needed in a time of woe.
Like right the fuck now.
The SSV Normandy had left the Hercules system some four hours prior to investigate the location of the SSV Xterra, an Explorer-Class Corvette that was known to be in the hands of the Geth. Arcturus Command had Command Ping'ed the vessels' IFF protocols, assuming that the Geth hadn't corrupted it so that it would still be seen as a 'friendly' vessel electronically for other Systems Alliance Naval vessels. The ping had come back with its location heading in the Theseus System of the Attican Beta Cluster, the furthest-colonized system from the clusters' relay. Fourth Fleet, stationed in the Theseus System in Feros Space, had been alerted to the vessels' vector and potential danger.
"Ma'am? We've fully entered into the Theseus System." Charles called out through his Aldrin Labs' Onyx Light Armor helmet, seeing the distortion normal for entering the helioshock wake dissipating as the Normandy entered into Theseus Space. His hands were already working to locate the normal route buoys; a series of communication buoys that the Alliance had in systems to give normal information about a system for better flight-in-system as well as warnings and tags of known anomalies and threats that a vessel needed to know. There were normally a dozen spaced approximately at three-quarters an AU apart along the most common vector of entry into a system, giving any vessel, from System Alliance Navy to an independent freighter, knowledge of such things as refuel points, discharge points, location of comets and asteroids, and connectivity of the in-system IntraSystem Alert Broadcast; a communications net that all Alliance-held systems had. It was both sword and shield for a system; it connected a vessel to what was in the system, allowing them to talk to any station or colony in the system FTL, while simultaneously affirming their IFF protocols and vessel manufacture and model. It was the first step towards guiding a friendly vessel in… and identifying the enemy.
"ISAB Net is down." Pressley looked over to Commander Mark Vanderloo, unable to see him frown due to his helmet. The Normandy went to DEFCON TWO status approximately five minutes prior, and all hands had donned on their armor for REDCON FOUR status; full environmental seal. Captain Shepard was expecting a battle with the suggestion that a Geth fleet had somehow jumped near the Theseus System not by means of FTL, but somehow a Translation jump with no known fixed exit. That should be impossible… but somehow the Geth had been able to reach the Utopia System and the Knossos System without alerting the Alliance to their presence in Earth Alliance Space. It was… a conclusion, if a far-fetched one. "Either they're not broadcasting, or they're destroyed."
"Ping." Vanderloo ordered. The Captain had to run to her quarters for her armor, and Mark had the deck.
"Aye aye, pinging." Charles tapped a few commands on his console on the CIC and set off a blast of radioactive isotopes in the x-ray bandwidth that could travel just shy of the speed of light, its half-life and dissipation rate known. The signature that the Normandy's 'ping' was set at had been altered at the Arc, Captain Shepard having wanting one that measured different from the rest of the Systems Alliance Navy, which was normally in the ultraviolet spectrum. Jane had it ordered to where the bandwidth could be mistaken for a x-ray burst from a black hole or perhaps a lensed flare from a pulsar; all plausible, and actually that bandwidth got a fair amount of readings that ranged from ghost hits to remnant echoes of supernovae millions of years prior. As a former LADAR Technician himself, Pressley knew that Humanity's First SPECTRE was using her intelligence and her experience as a Special Forces warrior to find ways to remain undetected for as long as possible. Someone went and handed an N a stealth vessel, and go figure Shepard looked about as giddy as a kid in a video game kiosk! It was a match made in Heaven. "Should get a return in a few minutes." He looked towards Mark and saw the Captain enter back onto the Bridge, armored in her HMWA MasterGear SPECTRE Mk. IV Armor, looking ready to go to war, be it space or on the ground. Her helmeted eyes cast over the updater marquee on the holographic visual over the CIC, answering her own questions before having to ask several when the answers could be found in front of her.
"Sir! We're getting returns from the x-ray bandwidth!" Petty Officer (Third Class) Kaylie Johnson spoke up from her station in the Ops Alley. "I'm seeing two scattered debris fields in the vicinity of where we should be detecting the ISAB. Fields are small, less than a tonnage." That confirmed what Pressley had already assumed; the Net wasn't down, it was destroyed.
The first act in a war.
"All hands, prepare for combat maneuvers." Captain Shepard rang out, calling out over the 1MC to alert everyone in the Normandy that this was no longer a precautionary search; they had prey to hunt down. "Navigation? I want an ecliptic path under the solar horizon and heading towards Feros Trojan Four. Joker? Mark Nine, full stealth, and prepare for intercept/destroy missions." Charles was already working on a presumed path towards the second planet in the Theseus System, charting a course that would go below the solar plain to avoid most space debris caught in the normal trajectory of Theseus' gravity, and then to a polar plot position that would have the Normandy heading towards the lead Trojan of Feros, LaGrange Point Four. Technically, it was a 'push' area of gravity where a small well of gravitational distortion buffered objects and cleared a path for a planet as it revolved around its solar planet. The Alliance Fourth should already be on station at Feros, either at LaGrange Point One or Two. Trojan Four was a smart heading when they would be heading in blind traveling at ninety percent the speed of light, readings coming in almost as fast as they were sent, the Doppler Effect almost working against them. If they were heading towards something, they could have mere minutes, if not seconds, to react.
"Course has been plotted, ma'am." The Navigator rang out as he sent the trajectory to both the CIC's holographic interface as well as the Normandy's pilot. Man was an ass (as all pilots were) but Charles had never seen a finer hand on the stick. Eden Prime and Therum had proved the man's chops. Joker earned the right to be as snarky as hell as long as he kept them alive. "Distance is set at eighteen Astronomical Units." The Lieutenant Commander informed the Captain, plugging a countdown on the CIC. "Travel at nine and a quarter minutes per AU puts the Normandy's ETA to Trojan Four Feros at one hundred and sixty-six minutes and forty-one seconds." The Geth fleet was ahead of them by ten to fifteen minutes, if what Captain Shepard believed was true. If that were so, then the Geth would likely be traveling at the same speed, perhaps on the solar plane, but perhaps above it or below it to avoid any gravitational anomalies, debris, asteroids, comets, or possible discovery by other vessels. The Fourth Fleet would lose normal data connection with the ISAB at the speed of light, and the Geth would be arriving about twelve minutes later, traveling at Mark Nine. If someone on the Kilimanjaro were paying attention, the loss of connectivity would be an alert, and bring the Fleet to a Yellow Alert status; an assumption of a possible attack.
The Normandy would be there another twelve or fifteen minutes later.
"Joker, punch it." There was no mistaken the vox'ed tone of Humanity's First SPECTRE as she ordered the Helmsman to go full flank, the Normandy-Class Stealth Reconnaissance Frigate already beginning to accelerate as the countdown began, the numbers growing steadily smaller as Charles looked upon the projected flight plan, seeing the blip that was the Normandy; one vessel against a system filled with unknowns. With the ISAB down, they didn't know the positions or configurations of the Alliance Fourth, any of the current projections of planets or comets, and of course no communications. The Normandy couldn't warn the Kili or any of its associated vessels of the threat bearing down on them now. All they could do was gun for it and hope that the Fourth had the situation under control with the Frigate only needing to provide minimal aid.
Two hours, forty-six minutes, and eighteen seconds from now.
Seaman Monica Negulesco sat in her 'crash' seat in the SSV Normandy's MedBay, the fold down chair bracketed against the inner hull of the medical department, strapped into the contraption as was necessary during Red Alert Status. As the youngest and lowest-ranking member of the Normandy's medical trauma team, Monica filled in the role of 'lowest man in the totem pole', though she was in fact a woman; the rule still applied. Most of her duties revolved doing the 'grunt' work of the Dispensary; accounting for medications, organization, cleaning and disinfecting, and the thousand-and-one 'Hey You' details that any E-2 and E-3 got their teeth sank into, just like any other lower-ranking Enlisted Member of the systems Alliance Military, regardless of the Service Branch. Realistically, the Hospital Corpsman knew she was luckier than most; she didn't have to stand Watch, she didn't have to repair, fix, or clean pipes or conduits for the Bosun's Mates or the Chief of the Deck, and working the Dispensary was actually a fun gig. She was the equivalent of an office visit nurse on some colony, which was something she was kind of hoping she could do once she served her four. There was never a shortage of jobs in the medical field, and going Navy meant she got the right kind of training and credentials that employers looked for. Plus, if she got rated into a specialty, that would only improve her future.
Being strapped to a crash seat and possibly heading to a war wasn't what she had in mind when she raised her right hand and took the Oath of Service.
"How you holding up, Nugee?"
Lord she hated that nickname.
Monica looked to her immediate left to see, armored in her totes awesome HMWA MasterGear SPECTRE Mk. I Armor(!), her Section Leader Petty Officer (Second Class) Sara Ryder; the Angel of Illyeria herself. When Negulesco had gotten orders to ship out on the Normandy, she hadn't even connected her orders to the vessel that had single-handedly saved Eden Prime, thinking that surely there was another Frigate with the same name? No, she had gotten orders for THE NORMANDY, captained by the Lion of Elysium (and SPECTRE!) Jane Catherine Shepard. And then her supervisor was none other than the Angel, too! Monica had EN-Mailed her parents that (along with a few pics, stills, and even a selfie with Ryder smirking next to her), much to their shock. Most everyone in Humanity knew the names Shepard and Ryder. But for Monica Negulesco, eighteen-years old and on her first vessel, those names meant something more.
She had been born on Elysium, after all.
"Good, Chief." Monica lied. She had a great deal more than butterflies in her stomach; she had a team of acrobats doing flying trapeze acts throughout her guts. The Seaman wasn't sure if she was going to accidentally poop herself at the thought of holy mother of god we're going to war! When she had joined, the Geth were a boogieman story told to Quarian children in their little plastic bubbles. Now they were gunning for Mankind. And Monica had raised her hand for a front seat ride.
"Music or the Bible."
"E-excuse me, Chief?"
"That's what helped me my first couple of times, Nugee." Lord, why did someone have to come up with a nickname that involved her last name and something that rhymed with 'Newbie'? "Some listen to music. Some read the Bible. I went with the Bible myself." Chief Ryder's helmeted head was looking at her, a Petty Officer looking out for her subordinate. "Scared?"
"Yes." That wasn't more than a whisper, barely caught by her Aldrin Labs' Onyx Light Armor's vox, spitting it out barely above detectable levels. "We're about to be shot up in a thin tin can in space when we can't even see outside or do anything about it! I'm frightened."
"It's different for ground combat, that's for sure." Doc Ryder replied, her tone… casual. "It's an interesting point you make, but that's when we rely upon the men and women whom we serve with, for them to do their jobs. When they get hurt? They rely on us to do our jobs. That's the trade off."
"I've never patched anyone up before." Monica squeaked, gulping down the lump in her throat as she gripped at her PlastiGel restraints for the comfort of holding onto something. "I've poked and prodded, but I've never seen anyone… jacked up before." She wasn't even sure she could stand the sight of blood. She'd seen a little, cuts and scrapesdue to being a kid on an agrarian world. But she'd never see someone with missing skin and the insides… out. And there were things much worse than that. Instant depressurization. Fourth degree burns. Kinetic impact. Asphyxiation. Severance. All of those were swirling in her mind. All likely possibilities when two Naval vessels decided to trade fire.
"When the time comes, just save one, and you'll know." The Angel told her, her blue eyes peering through the visor of her helmet, steady and assured. "People think what we do is heroic, but honestly it's as simple as keeping the blood in and keeping them breathing. As long as you're doing that, you're doing your job. It doesn't say anything less of you when you're in a situation that's over your head. Just do what you know, and you would have bought a patient time."
"Was… was that what it was like for you? On Elysium?" Negulesco asked her superior, feeling curiosity get the better of her. Chief Ryder had been a thirteen year old girl when she decided to up and jump in the middle of the Assault of Elysium to help people left for dead. Monica had really looked up to the Angel when she was a kid, so totes impressed on what someone only a little older than herself could accomplish. She had a poster of Jane Shepard and Sara Ryder posing for some PicOp for some e-mag, and of course The Fires Of Heaven vid poster, too. The Lion was awesome, of course, but Monica had always looked up to the young and effervescently playful Sara Elaine Ryder.
Now she was working at the Angels' side.
"Yes… but worse." The helmeted head looked away for a moment, and the Hospital Corpsman got the sense that the Navy Corpsman was reliving some of that time. "I didn't know much back then. I learned through trial-and-error, seeing what Doctors did and doing a bad job mimicking them. Honestly, I'm really surprised that none of the people I worked on had died by accident, though mostly I was stuffing Curlex into wounds, binding it in place, dabbing MediGel on some of the lesser wounds, and immobilizing broken limbs. Seeing a hall full of people waiting to die?" The helmet turned back to her. "It was sickening. I understand why they did it, as most of those people were shot in the chest or the belly, and required serious medical care that would have taken a team, surgery, and providers away from people who had a better chance. I did what I could, putting in IV's while stopping bleeding and even using a skin stapler incorrectly, I found out later on. Those people in that hallway didn't care how young I was or how bad I sucked. I was there for them when they needed someone. The guardian angel." That part the young woman knew.
"My father was one of them." The Corpsman admitted to the E-5 sheepishly, something she hadn't told Ryder about. "He… he took a round to his chest, just below the ribcage and the diaphragm. He was having slow internal bleeding in his stomach, and… and they left him to die." Monica had to blink back tears, remembering learning how close to death her father had been. She was only nine at the time during the Assault, gratefully nowhere near any attack by mere circumstance. Her father, a police officer, had responded with courage and honor, pulling people away and protecting them before some pirate or slaver shot him through his Light Patrolman Armor meant for civilian-grade weapons and not high-powered military arms. "You stapled his wound close, gave him an IV, and saved his life. I got to have a father for another nine years thanks to how young you were and how bad you sucked." That had Able Seaman Helen Lowe, sitting on the other side of the MedBay, snort out loud. "Were you scared?"
"Terrified, honestly, but not in the way you think." The brunette replied. "I had jumped Cit and landed in an active war zone because I was more brash than brains. Auntie was on Elysium, and no matter how many times I Chirped her or called her, she didn't respond." That had been a part of The Fires Of Heaven. "I was scared for someone else, not myself. Not my brightest moment, but I wouldn't take it back for anything. Same here."
"'Only those prepared to go too far can possibly know how far they can go.'" That came from Doctor Karin Carolyn Chakwas in her own armor and crash seat across from them.
"Ernest Hemingway." Chief Ryder informed Monica when the young woman looked to her, eliciting an 'ahhh' from her before she had to ask.
"Is he an actor?" That just got the Angel to sigh and shake her head.
T-Minus twenty-two minutes before reaching their destination, the SSV Normandy's Op Alley screenwatcher pukes started getting returns, and Lieutenant (junior grade) Vanessa Steele had already sent the order to her Gunners to lock and load, rock and roll. Magazines had been loaded into the Linear Acceleration Motorized Cannons that consisted of the Frigates' deck guns, each of the four pivoting defense weapons manned by her department personnel, men and women she personally browbeated to death to being fast and accurate on the trigger, while the GARDIAN Infrared Anti-Missile Systems were primed and charged. Her eight Deck Gunners were manning their stations, Augmented Relay HUD's displaying on the interior of their helmets' visors, giving them a real-time parity view of the space around the Frigate based on the sensors and scans. It was to enhance their aim, not relying on software or tracking programs, instead using hand-to-eye coordination to target inbound missiles, flyers, and even other starcraft. One really couldn't hack a passive scanner, though spoofing one was possible, though extremely difficult in battle. Plus it gave her gun-bunnies a mountain of shit to brag about actually having 'a real job' in the Navy that didn't consist of looking at a screen or watching a dial. They shot at things for a living and protected the vessels' flanks.
"Gunny? Mags are loaded with Samsonite Rounds, GARDIANs are set at sixty kilowatts, and two GUNGNIR Missiles are loaded and ready." Chief Petty Officer Robert Felawa informed her of the Weapons Division state-of-readiness. The LAM-C deck guns would be firing chemically-propelled rounds through a mass acceleration tunnel to lower the amount of heat produced, the fabrication of the rounds being an Iridium-laced Alumnisteel round measuring in the Imperial fifty caliber range. Each round struck at somewhere around four kiloJoules of force, and those LAM-Cs spat out ten rounds a second to shoot down missiles, fighter craft, drones, and any other near-range threats. There were two on the starboard side, and then two on port. The GARDIANs were calibrated at an one millimeter wavelength, oscillating at three hundred gigaHertz per second; the lowest setting to ensure maximum usage while conserving on power and thermalization., two to either side of the vessel as well. The GUNGNIR Missiles, what the boys in Ops Alley liked to call 'the Odin Spear' was a titanic-sized missile that normally was loaded onto Cruisers, and meant to crack a Turian Raptor-Class Cruiser into pieces. It had a one point two kilogram anti-matter warhead suspended in a vacuum bottle, and would royally fuck up someone's day when any kind of matter decided to shake hands with the anti-baryon substance. Vanessa was looking forward to annihilating some Geth.
Hell, she hadn't even pulled out the big guns, yet. They had an Ace for when shit got real nasty.
"Smoke? Tell Engineering to load up three of those probes that I had Doc Ryder manufacture the goodies for us." Steele told her direct subordinate, tapping at a few codes to keep the Gunners' field-of-view as crystal as possible while keeping an eye on ammunition, heat, power, and damages to Weapons. There were two dozen 'Science' probes that could be modulated for any number of uses, from communications to drilling, but an idea had come to her and the Lieutenant had talked to their resident SciTech Department Head on crafting a few goodies for when the Normandy faced the Geth. Guns were good, but any serious student of history knew that deception was just as good a a well-placed round. The idea in question was something she had actually seen in a movie, and wondered if it could actually work.
"Which ones?" Smoke Felawa asked, the Weapons Crew Chief looking at the Weapons Chief through his helmet to ascertain just which brand of nastiness she wanted to field test.
"The WARLOCKs." Vanessa told her subordinate, her smile hidden in her helmet as she looked at the four options she had Petty Officer (Second Class) Sara Ryder and her SciTech team craft for her. The WARLOCKs were based off an invention from back in the early-21st Century, something that the United States Navy had made for its Army when facing insurgents and terrorists in the Afghan/Iraq Wars. The enemy had been using portable communications as triggers to homemade munitions to blow up petrol-ran Armored Personnel Vehicles back then, so the Navy had crafted an anti-communications device that 'snowed' reception along certain frequencies by overpowering them with garbage transmissions, preventing improvised explosive devices from blowing up. Of course, no one connected to the 'Net with radio anymore, instead using Light-Fidelity Communications. One couldn't 'snow' a laser-link with sound.
But light had its limitations.
Captain Jane Shepard had a movie night a few weeks back, and had delved into her love of old-ass movies and had the old Avengers movie on. Steele had watched it mostly to be polite, but there had been a scene that had practically made her bolt out of her seat from the Officers' Galley to see if it were actually possible. Most everyone just destroyed comms buoys to deny long-range communications, but short-range communications from ships were essentially unstoppable… unless one physically got in between two ships (which was just stupid). But when she had seen the portion where Iron Man used his little hand lasers to fire upon Captain America's shield, and Cap using it as a mirror…
Light was susceptible to reflection and refraction!
Steele had brought up the idea to Doc Ryder, who seemed pretty impressed with the idea. The Corpsman had crafted powdered diamondglas and coated the substance on a common laser-link to see if it would work. The initial test had been a success, so they had tested how much was needed to disrupt Li-Fi communications, what percentage of coverage was needed in an area or coating a link in order to really disrupt communications, even just cutting it down by half.
Fifteen percent. Just fifteen percent by volume in an area or over a transmitter/receiver. That was easily doable.
Steele and Ryder had spent several hours testing it on other pieces of equipment; one of the spare Thermal Sensors that would normally go on the hull, an Electromagnetic Sensor, a Radiation Sensor, and a Light-Capture Sensor. While the WARLOCK wouldn't do anything to the EM Sensor or the Rad Sensor, it had worked beautifully against the Thermal Sensor and the Light-Capture Sensor. In just one day, Vanessa Steele recreated jamming; the ability to clog communications, but in interstellar space. The Captain had been pretty giddy at the thought, and was looking forward to the results.
The Geth were going to get their mechanical asses handed back to them with chaff.
"We're getting telemetry at extreme ranges." Commander Mark Vanderloo announced, meaning that the Normandy's screenwatchers were detecting signals at the AU-and-a-half range; the normal 'barrier' where ghost signals and pass/fail ratio for an actual contact was around fifty percent. Too much distance and distortion made seeing things at greater than a hundred and fifty thousand kilometers, an Astronomical Unit, dicey. At two hundred and twenty-five? It was like trying to find something while blindfolded. "Picking up possible IFF tags." They were approximately fifteen minutes out from Trojan Four; that was about right for time and dispersement of fleet. It would be about twelve minutes ETA when the Normandy would pick up anything at Trojan Four. The contacts must be at LaGrange Two; where Theseus and Feros were 'in front' of.
"We're getting a clearer picture." Lieutenant Commander Charles Pressley was hard at work at his Navigation terminal, inputing and trying to clear up the distortion, likely by realigning arrays to specified points.
"Oh… oh shit! Multiple bogeys!" One of the screenwatchers called out from the Ops Alley, the LADAR Technician at the Thermal station sounding shocked. "Five dozen returns and growing!"
"That's more than a Turian Fleet." Steele announced, which wasn't to say the Ops Alley puke was incorrect; the Geth played by their own rules. It wasn't like they were having to feed themselves or cater to public opinion, after all. She looked up to the CIC's holographic overlay being displayed and saw the contacts being populated quickly… and numerously. Five dozen. Six. Seven? Eighty-four fucking ships with no matching IFF signatures or handshakes?
No… ten dozen ships!
"That… can't be right." First Lieutenant Nicholai Yevseyenkov sputtered, his thick accent only punctuating it. "Boshi moi… that is more than two Fleets! None of them are the Fourth?"
"We're not picking up any Alliance tags." Vanderloo replied, his tone ugly. "We're in stealth, so the Geth aren't trying to hide identification or infiltrating our systems. The Fourth must be located somewhere else."
"We are picking up debris fields… and life pod markers." Pressley reported grimly, and that had Steele wince. Debris fields meant destroyed ships, and life pods were escaped crew, whatever low percentage was able to get off before the ship came apart in pieces. "Looks like at least fifteen ruptured core signatures, and another six disabled vessels broken and scattered." That news hit like a metric tonne of bricks; twenty-one vessels… when the Fourth Fleet commanded thirty-seven. "The largest I'm detecting… God, it's a Carrier by the amount."
"XO? I want telemetry to the biggest, juiciest target out there." Captain Shepard was dead intent not to fuck around. A Marco Polo-Class Carrier had nearly two thousand souls on it. The Fourth Fleet had two Carriers, one a Fighter Carrier, and the other a Drone Carrier. Add the four Cruisers, six Destroyers, twelve Frigates and twelve Corvettes along with the Kili, and who was to say what had survived?
"I got the makings of a Dreadnought, same configuration as the ones spotted over Eden Prime. Six light-minutes away, Captain." XO Vanderloo replied a moment later, tapping out some commands to get him the biggest target within the reach of their sensors. "Captain? We're to their keel."
"Gunny? Eject one of the Odins." The SPECTRE's armored visor looked right at her.
"I want you to plant a MFOAB straight up that bitches' ass like it's prom night."
Lieutenant Steele couldn't help herself; she giggled.
The proper military name for the missile was the Multi-stage Fusion Objective Acquisition Battery.
Everyone else just called it the Motherfucker Of All Bombs.
During the First Contact War, when Turian Fleets hovered over Shanxi and a desperate Colonial Defensive Patrol tried to hold back the tide of aliens, they had learned, to their sorrow, just how unprepared and nearly-obsolete their technology was compared to the Palavenians. The weapons of Humanity required three to four times more hits to bring down a Turian Hasti Soldier, and its vessels faired about in the same regard. The only actual real advantage that they had was that some of their more obsolete weapons were actually effective, such things as copper-tossers and fragmentary grenades still worked rather well.
Missiles were another effective tool.
In the arms race of the galaxy concerning a dozen different governments in Council Space, missile technology had been long since left behind with the invention of kinetic barriers, deemed rather useless considering that they were slower than main cannon rounds, and didn't piece through a ship, merely blowing up a bigger hole. Missiles were still used by ground forces, mostly as anti-aircraft and anti-vehicular weapons, but the idea of a rocket-propelled warhead coming at hypersonic speeds to blow up was a quaint thing amongst the civilizations of the galaxy when ships were armed with guns that could fire at a fraction of the speed of light. Ships were designed around a main gun, usually occupying eighty percent of its length for maximum velocity of a multi-kilogram round.
That was the case until Humanity had been discovered.
During Operation: Repensium, Humanity's counterattack and rescue operation for Shanxi against the Turians, Fleet Admiral Jon Ulysses Grissom, one of the greatest heroes Humanity had ever produced, had taken the fight right into the teeth of not one but two Turian Fleets. He had no idea how badly outmatched First Fleet was, but his sole intent was to hurt them as badly as possible so as to drop ground forces to relieve the beleaguered colonists and forces upon the colony. Twenty vessels lead by the SSV Everest had flew into the gauntlet of waiting Turian vessels, Hierarchy Captains practically laughing their fringes off with the telemetry readings of Humanity vessels. Every Alliance Class was smaller by half to its Turian counterpart, possessed no kinetic defenses, and still used chemical propellants for weaponry. The Fleet Admiral-in-Charge of the pacification and hastism of Shanxi, Fleet Admiral Augustus Kremlivius, had actually ordered his Captains to hold fire to let the pitiful warships get within closer range so that the Fleets' fighters could get some kills in.
What he hadn't expected was that Humanity was armed to the teeth with ship-killing missiles.
Due to the low amount of Element Zero discovered on Mars in the Archives, Humanity had been severely stringent with the mineral, using it only for fleet vessel engine cores. No weapon was ever crafted with Eezo, and no high-gain energy manipulation device was ever created, meaning that Humanity had never discovered kinetic protective technology on its own. When its forces fought the Turians on the fields of Shanxi, they still fought with rounds stuffed into compressed packets of gunpowder called caseless ammunition. Surprisingly, they worked; the rounds were too slow to activate the kinetic shields of Hasti Soldiers, and the high-impact ceramic armor meant to shrug off higher velocity yet smaller surface area rounds were quickly cracked and compromised by hypersonic bullets the size of a Human thumb. The death toll was alarming for the Turians, especially when farmers and soldiers rigged every piece of trash and unsuspecting item with homemade explosives, introducing the Turians to the concept of IED's. Hasti Commanders hadn't been amused losing soldiers to teddy bears and coke cans.
In space, it was so much worse.
Admiral Grissom, former Captain of the Charon Expeditionary Vessel Excelsior, hadn't held back at all. He didn't know why the 'Raptors' hadn't blasted him out of the black as he led his twenty ships to engage the enemy, and he hadn't really cared, either. He flew his vessels within a light-minute of the Turian Fleets and unleashed every missile that was loaded in a pod at the sixty vessels he was facing… all five hundred of them. Since Humanity never had a force to fight up against, they had remained with a technology they had known well; missile technology. And then they improved upon it to destroy starships in case they ever did face a hostile race (or themselves). Those five hundred missiles had clogged up the sensors of the Turians, making the screenwatchers chuckle at the sight of chemical propellant munitions flying towards them at a speed that wasn't even a fraction of lightspeed; they seriously had to compute it to a slower standard, a multiple of the speed of sound. Some wondered if the fuel would run out before the missiles reached their targets four minutes later after launch, traveling at a quarter of a single percent of lightspeed.
Their amusement turned to horror when five hundred missiles began pinging radiological alarms at a distance of twenty light-seconds.
It was far too late by then.
Sixty Turian vessels spun up their GARDIAN Laser Arrays to protect their ships, but it was well past the point of no return. Turians learned, to their horror, that Humanity had created missiles that had a Depleted Uranium tipped-shell meant to pierce ship hulls, designed to explode forward to penetrate further in to cause even more damage when the main warhead, a fifteen kiloton nuclear device, went off. When the missiles reached the kinetic barriers of the Turian Hierarchy Vessels, the DU shells slammed into it… and burst forward past the shields, never breaking through them, yet still sending their payload towards the vessel under its protective envelope. A quarter of the missiles had been shot down, but not nearly enough. Four hundred and seventy-five missiles homed in on sixty vessels and delivered Humanity's response explosively. Every vessel Destroy-Class and smaller was utterly destroyed from the several nuclear explosions contained within their own kinetic shielding, the defenses reflecting all the damage inside before finally giving way. Half of the Cruisers were destroyed as well, and the singular Dreadnought had to limp back with a complete loss of its kinetic emitter arrays, sensor packages, and dignity, defenseless, blind, and smarting from a knock-out blow. What should have been an easy victory had instead be a resound loss.
Admiral Grissom's response is still echoed to this day; there isn't a problem we have yet encountered that we can't solve with high explosives.
Needless to say, the galaxy was less-than-amused to be introduced to a barbarically-backwards species wielding nuclear spears that could pass right through a shield.
For the past two and a half decades, Humanity and Alliance Command realized that missile technology was their Golden Goose. It would take decades and billions of Cit Credits to retrofit every Naval vessel in Council Space to protect itself from Humanity's sole military advantage, practically bankrupting most of the minor species and introducing economic depressions to the Council Species if they dared tried. And the best part was that missile technology was cheap. Humanity could make ten thousand missiles for the price of one Corvette, and their Alliance ships were already designed with the thought of missile defense in mind, having multiple hulls to prevent deep penetration. For once, being backwards had an advantage.
So of course Mankind decided to improve upon their one-trick pony.
In the Systems Alliance Navy, there were about thirty styles of missiles. Nuclear, Anti-matter, EMP burst, Thermal burst, Radiological burst, Duel-Purpose, High-Explosive/Anti-Vessel (HEAV), Hull Penetrating… options for facing against anything and everything. Most every single one of them was designed to work around kinetic shielding for maximum damage, and even a cheap missile that got past a barrier without breaking it became a great deal more effective when the same shield reflected all the energy right back to the ship. The Turian Hierarchy had introduced the tactic of actually turning off their shields if ever facing Humanity again to avoid suffering the same fate as they had in the Relay 314 Incident… though that meant their vessels were more vulnerable. The backwater species had a trump card no one had figured out a way to get around yet.
That certainly didn't stop the Alliance Navy from building bigger and better missiles, either. Far from it.
The latest innovation in missile technology was the Multi-stage Fusion Objective Acquisition Battery; the Motherfucker of all Bombs.
The weapons designer who came up with the designed signed the schematic with a quote; "Guaranteed to piss the Council the fuck off in 3.2 seconds. Expect a war with a very frightened Hierarchy afterwards." Three had been made during initial manufacture, lab-tested on computers and later in a trail run in a black system that had one M-Class Red Dwarf Star and an asteroid belt for Naval ships to use as a playground. The MFOAB had performed as promised; a one kilometer-sized asteroid had been turned into space dust, an imaginary Dreadnought if the need ever arose.
The Systems Alliance Navy, of course, ordered a dozen.
The SSV Normandy had one of them.
In later months after the Battle of the Citadel, in the Systems Alliance Military Academy based in Baltimore in the United North American States, military professors would go over the tactics of the SR-1 SSV Normandy to teach Cadets on the principles of both Basic Spatial Tactics, and its Upper Classmen equivalent, Advanced Spatial Tactics. Many noted that the Normandy was a unique vessel with a unique crew, generally rated as some of the best in their domains, and then put aboard the same ship. Its tactics in the skies of Eden Prime were noted as being hyperlethal against the Geth that couldn't even see the Frigate while its Weapons Officer self-ejected probes stuffed with explosives and shot out using air pressure to maintain stealth while damaging and destroying Geth ships. Its use of varying wavelengths and intensities of its GARDIAN lasers was practically studied with a nanoscope, the telemetry and data showing what varying conditions would bring out more success for a Gunner who would opt between killing a vessel with a sharp, powerful blast, or powering it down to merely take out the thrusters on a Fighter. Its use of 'fake' distress beacons, boffing fake ship signatures, and even using a General Dynamics M35 MAKO Armored Personnel Vehicle as a boarding vessel by blasting it out of the cargo bay with air pressure and 'flying' it with its jump thrusters were all studied and taught to Cadets who listened in awe at the sheer insanity of a Frigate Captain and its crew.
But perhaps a class favorite was simply known as the Prom Night Special.
The maneuver came with the standard set of warnings to the Cadets; there was only one Stealth Vessel in all of the Systems Alliance Navy. To attempt to fly into another vessels' keel and targeting its thrusters, while preferred, was an unlikely scenario. It was noted that the rear of a vessel, like any other armored vehicle, was its weakest point; thrusters weren't armored, and kinetic defenses didn't bother trying to defend against the fusion torch of burning Heavy Helium while traveling at sub-FTL. Any Captain worth their salt always kept that fact in mind whenever engaging against hostiles, much like any Ground Commander would tell their Privates or Naval Ground Forces to mind their six. No one wanted to get shot in the ass.
No one wanted a Prom Night Special. Except as a delivery device.
The SSV Normandy had its advantages, of course. Being a vessel meant to disguise its profile against sensor technology was a big boon. The fact that it faced a species that was completely reliant on electronic detection certainly didn't hurt either. When the Normandy arrived for what would later be known as the Battle of LaGrange Point Two (Feros), the double Fleet of Geth vessels simply didn't know that the Stealth Reconnaissance Frigate was there, giving it complete freedom of maneuver, which its Captain exploited judiciously by flying within teeth range of a Dreadnought and proceeded to launch the most powerful missile in Humanity's arsenal straight into its thrusters and reactor core.
The missile in question being the Multi-stage Fusion Objective Acquisition Battery.
The name of the missile itself was a joke; it was meant to mess with the Council. Fusion missiles were generally low-yield nuclear warheads that Humanity used during the Skyllian Blitz to blast 'non-Hegemony' vessels into irradiated ruins whenever they were detected in Alliance Space. Really, it was just invented so someone could come up with a legitimate sounding name for its true description; the Motherfucker of all Bombs.
Because, essentially, that's what it was.
While the rest of the galaxy's navies were playing catch-up with missile technology (for its obvious advantage), Humanity enjoyed the fact that it was the leader of the pack in something, and intended to keep that edge. Nuclear power, while destructive, was catching heat from the Council. The Systems Alliance enjoyed the notoriety, and instead of backing away from the threat of sanctions, decided to come up with something worse.
Basically, the MFOAB was a missile with a destabilized Eezo Core attached to the nose.
Inside the warhead was a specially-crafted device that was, in essence, the reactor core of a General Dynamics's M577 GRZLY Armored Personnel Carrier, enriched with Beryllium, and set within a microsystem that all but guaranteed a runaway meltdown, creating what everyone feared; a core detonation. While placed upon a missile rack upon a vessel, it was attached to a ships' cooling system to keep the energized core functioning properly in a low-powered state, actually adding a small boost to the ships' electrical systems and capabilities. Disconnected, it would last about five minutes (or less, depending on the arming sequence) before going catastrophic. Upon a space vessel, it was a death sentence for ship and crew.
Actually, that's exactly what the Systems Alliance Navy wanted. Which was why they had a dozen of them. More than enough to scare off even the Turians.
One entire class session of Advanced Spatial Tactics in the Systems Alliance Naval Academy was devoted to the Prom Night Special; when a one-hundred and fifty-five meter Frigate cracked a nine-hundred meter Geth Dreadnought in half.
The quote that Humanity's First SPECTRE gave in where to deliver said missile, and likening it in its manner of delivery, was quite popular with the Cadets.
So was the result.
"I want you to plant a MFOAB straight up that bitches' ass like it's prom night."
Commander Mark Vanderloo stood there speechless. Had he heard that right?… yes, yes he had. Humanity's First SPECTRE was going to attempt to kill an actual Geth Dreadnought, while in stealth, by delivering an overpowered exploding Eezo Core into its tailpipe, detonating it, and likely the Dreadnoughts' own core, wiping it out of existence.
"We'll need at least a fifteen second window to get out of the envelope if that Dreadnought's core goes supercritical." Vanderloo advised, looking at the battlemap hovering in the CIC, thinking it over. "We can use the Steele Maneuver to deliver the MFOAB, blow it out by air and give us time to pull a Crazy Ivan and get out of range." Being near a core when it went supercritical was a terrifying ordeal. And generally the larger the ship, the larger the result, and the more intense the effect. For a Dreadnought to go supercritical measured somewhere in the range of small nova in terms of destructive power. Anything within a twentieth of an AU would get pulverized. Actually, there were a fair amount of Geth ships that were within that range of the Dreadnought. Lots of birds for one Eezo-detonating stone. "It looks like we can clear out about another ten vessel potentially with this strike, Captain."
"The more, the merrier." The Human SPECTRE replied through her helmets' vox, sounding a little too amused. Then again, it was the Geth. "When we strike, I want us to ride on the radiation wake and open up with everything we've got to strike out on anything within range. Shields will be down from the high-gain radiation, but Geth sensors and shields will be down too. I want as much fucking debris in my sky as possible."
"We can do that." Came the voice of Flight Lieutenant Jeffery 'Joker' Moreau, sounding enthusiastic. "We'll probably have to dock and decon afterwards, scrub the sensors and make sure no one pisses green afterwards. But I'm game." Their pilot was a highly-talented maniac with a perchance of pulling insane maneuvers with the vessel to avoid damage and getting closer. Mark didn't doubt Moreau was going to live it up and talk shit to other pilots if they survived this bout of madness. Pilots were like that.
"Nav? Pre-plot all existing positions and plot course for engagement of as many of the Cruisers and Destroyers as possible." That wake would blind them as well, but they had physical camera to visual see if necessary. With their backs to the supercritical mass explosion, they would technically have the old-school advantage of having their backs to the sun, 'blinding' the Geth to their approach. "Make sure we plot course corrections to steer clear of any secondary critical core mass explosions if we land a lucky hit and light up a Cruiser."
"Easily done." Lieutenant Commander Charles Pressley replied, sounding chipper. With the knowledge of what the Geth had done to Eden Prime, Therum, the Horizon, and now possibly the Alliance Fourth Fleet, everyone was looking forward to having a little old-fashion revenge at the Geth's expense for a change. It was as Jane said weeks ago; they were the tip of the spear.
And now they had the perfect opportunity to make it hurt.
The next couple of minutes were tense as the SSV Normandy flew into a Geth Fleet formation, heading towards where the flagship of the Fleet was located right at the center. The only words spoken were the necessary updates as the seconds ticked by, several members on the Bridge almost afraid to say anything louder than a whisper, as if their voices would cause the Geth to find them. Not once were they targeted or shot at as they flew ever closer to the nine-hundred meter long Dreadnought that was no doubt the Command-and-Control vessel for the Geth. If it was anything like an Alpha Prime unit, then destroying it could subsequently put the rest of the Geth Fleet into turmoil without their 'brain'. Mark was pretty sure that was what Jane was banking for; command assassination. It took five minutes for the Steal Frigate to reach its destination. It was a very tense five minutes.
"Captain, we've approached the beginning of the Danger Close zone." The XO called out. "Fifteen light-seconds from Dreadnought Designation-Alpha, bow pointed aligned with it keel." The CIC map showed the Normandy essentially in the middle of a Fleet of a hundred and twenty ships, every single one of them the enemy. But Captain Jane Shepard had eyes only for the prize, and the Lion of Elysium never settled for anything less that the biggest, nastiest, juiciest targets on the battlefield, either on ground or in space. The Geth were about to learn the same lesson Elias Haliat learned several years prior when the redheaded N7 executed him live on the ExtraNet just so everyone would know he was dead… and who had pulled the trigger.
"Vanessa? Prepare to launch MFOAB in three-zero seconds, initiate with air launch." Humanity's First SPECTRE ordered, her voice like iron. "Joker, fly us as close as you can to those Cruisers so we can carve them up. I don't want our Gunners feeling left out."
"You know, this actually reminds me of my first boyfriend." Lieutenant (j.g.) Vanessa Steele said as she tapped in the command that would fill the missile tube with air to initiate an air pressure launch. Normally, missile tubes were equalized before firing, its atmo sucked out. But this time they were using the 'Steele Maneuver' and launching it with air as to maintain stealth. There wasn't an Internal Emissions System for missile launches, the deck guns, or the spinal-mounted main cannon. If they fired any of those, it would be seen even if the ship still technically remained invisible. "I remember the first time he suggested we do anal. Prom night, no less."
"Yeah? How'd that work out?" Mark scoffed at the banter between the Weapons Chief and their Commanding Officer, Jane sounding amused.
"Pretty much like this." Vanessa replied.
And hit the launch button.
Author's Notes: Next chapter? It's peanut butter jelly time!
This chapter was more like a Star Trek episode where I show you a little of the day-to-day Navy. In fact, I borrowed a good deal from Star Trek.
The screenwatchers all look for something that modern-day Navy Sailors look out for, but I futurize it. Cherenkov Radiation is a real thing, and I describe it factually. It would be the space-age equivalent of looking for ship wakes, which we still do. Thermal signatures would be 'lookouts' for the physical object on the horizon (again, we still do that, if not in Crow's Nests). Reber Signatures is named for Grote Reber; the first Radio Astronomer. This is SONAR concept but in space. X-Ray Bandwidth is above Infrared, so this would be 'electronic' viewing, similar to Radar. As the Navy works off of Sphere of Influence/Line of Sight tactics, the better/further they see, the better the effect. Can't hit shit if you can't see it coming.
LCARS - Library Computer Access and Retrieval System - The databank/server used in any Starfleet vessel for access information, download, upload, and recording purposes. Thank you, Memory Alpha!
Charles Pressley was known to be at Elysium on the Agincourt (a Frigate based on the name), but I also made him a part of the Canon-based Threshaca Raids, in which I describe faithful to canon. He also was a responder to Mindoir, and cradled a possible Shepard; the broken form of a little girl. More on that later.
I made the vessel of Mass Effect much like our own, with multiple weapons systems, detection systems, tactics, and ideas. Naval vessels all have deck guns, anti-missile guns, missile pods, and even aircraft in the name of defense and blowing up the other guy. I pretty much made the Normandy like the Nathan James at this point in time. Which, considering that the fictional Nathan James is a real-life Arleigh Burke-Class Destroyer (in fact, all the panoramic shots are of the USS Dewey and the Halsey, the US Navy steaming them off to the middle of nowhere so the cameras could get clips of a modern destroyer without land or buildings in the way!)
Monica Negulesco will be a normal Hospital Corpsman you'll be seeing in the rest of this ARC, Robin to Sara's Batman. Because everyone needs a sidekick.
GUNGNIR - The name of Odin's Spear.
The WARLOCK system - Most Army Vets will know this term, and any ECM Navy geeks would to. This is the anti-RCIED device that has saved thousands and thousands of lives on both sides of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan; military, civilian, local national, and other. I specifically liken it to the WARLOCK DUKE, a jamming device powered by a vehicle, in layman's terms. Theoretically, infrared is an electromagnetic radiation, so glass wouldn't distort it… though polarized glass does work quite well.
In the MEU, they would most certainly have to use laser-link light-fidelity communications if they ever wanted to talk to anyone in the next year. Light reaches Pluto from the Sun in approximately 5 hours and 40 minutes… at the speed of light. At the speed of sound in an interstellar medium? Five centuries.
The MFOAB - I had originally created this for The Third Unification War in "A Fox Amongst The Wolves", which would have involved the Hierarchy defending Palaven against the Seperatists in a super massive Dreadnought I coined 'a Deathstar'. The MFOAB was to be Humanity's secret weapon, deployed to save the Turians' bacon by Captain Steven Hackett to destroy a crust-buster planet-killer vessel. It was originally going to be an Anti-Matter device (which was to be illegal in Council Space) but as I said earlier; I thought up of something worse. Basically took a page out from Star Trek and used a warp core as a missile, since they're always dumping one for some sort of insanity. Works for Gene Roddenberry, James T. Kirk, and Jean Luc Picard, so why not?